


Cut through the clouds, break the ceiling

by kimabutch (CWoodP)



Series: RQG Femslash Week 2020 [1]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, First Dates, it could technically have happened, legally this is still canon compliant, spoilers for RQG 127
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23255494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/pseuds/kimabutch
Summary: On Saira’s birthday, Earhart drops by to take her for a ride.Set during the 18-month timeskip, a few months after the Tahan family has moved inland. Written for day one of RQG Femslash Week: Celebrations!
Relationships: Amelia Earhart/Saira al-Tahan, Saira al-Tahan/Amelia Earhart
Series: RQG Femslash Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672117
Comments: 21
Kudos: 22
Collections: RQG Femslash Week 2020





	Cut through the clouds, break the ceiling

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Cut to the Feeling by Carly Rae Jepsen. Thanks so much to the Red String server for encouraging me to write self-indulgent slash fic and for unsticking me several times, and especially to Bri for beta-reading and inspiring Saira/Earhart in the first place.

Unpacking and sorting the Tahan family’s many books is a long, thankless task, but Saira’s almost grateful that it’s taken her over two months to even get started on it; she needs something tedious to take her mind off everything. Sitting on the floor amid a dozen boxes, Saira is happy to worry more about whether to alphabetize or sort by theme than about the family’s finances or how Ishak’s coping without his twin. Her parents and Ishak are all out doing some errand or another, Saleh is quietly reading in his room, and Saira is calm in the comfortable afternoon silence of their new home. 

That is, until she hears a knock at the door. 

Saira puts down the book in her hand, sighs, pulls herself up from the floor, and then furrows her brow at the realization that the knock came from the back door. She makes her way to a window at the back of the house and cautiously pulls aside part of the curtain. Waiting eagerly on the porch is a gnome woman in a huge, ostentatious hat and a smart, well-cut sailing uniform. From the line of squished flowers in the garden, Saira guesses that her invisible airskiff’s parked behind her. 

Saira sighs again. Earhart’s come around half a dozen times in these past few months. She’s been delivering forgotten items from their Cairo estate and using the back garden of the Tahan’s inland house as an out-of-the way place to make adjustments on her new airship in between missions for the Harlequins. Saira doesn’t mind it, exactly — Earhart’s somewhat antagonistic conversations are always fun — but last time she had promised to have one of Curie’s agents call ahead of her, so that they could prepare for the visitor, and she should really know better than to land right in the garden.

When she opens the door, Saira has no time to say anything before Earhart’s dropped to a deep, mocking bow, flourishing her ridiculous hat out in front of her with a “good afternoon, Miss Tahan” in that strange accent of hers. 

“Earhart,” Saira says in a measured voice as Earhart replaces her hat. “We weren’t expecting you. What brings you to our _garden_ today, _unannounced_?”

“Well,” Earhart says, “I was talking with one of your old staff in Cairo and I happened to hear about your birthday. Figured I should stop by and wish you well.”

Saira’s stomach drops as she realizes that Earhart’s right and moreover, that she had forgotten her own birthday. It makes a certain degree of sense, given everything that’s happened. Birthdays for the Tahans had always been an excuse for extravagant dinners, but they’d more or less stopped celebrating them after Ismail had been an inconsolable mess on his first birthday alone, and after the silence that pervaded the house on Aziza’s birthday, they’d stopped acknowledging them altogether. Saira wonders if Earhart, standing there with her wry grin, knows that. 

“That’s very… kind kind of you,” Saira says finally, still unsure if this is one or Earhart’s elaborate pranks. “But you really didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”

“Nonsense! You need a celebration, and I was thinking a ride in the fastest airship this side of the Atlantic” — Earhart gestures behind her at the invisible boat — “might be just the thing.”

“If this is a joke, Earhart —”

“I’ve told you to call me Am.” 

“Only when you stop calling me Miss Tahan.” 

Earhart fixes her with a sharp look, still smiling. “Fine. It’s not a joke, _Saira_. But if it makes you feel better, we can say that I’m training a new member of the Harlequins on the operations of the organization’s equipment.”

“I’m not a Harlequin.”

“Not _yet_ ,” Earhart says. “We’ll put a ring on you still.” 

Saira pointedly ignores the double-meaning of the phrase and thinks instead of the last time she was on an airship — almost a year ago, back when the world was normal. The sight of the calmly rolling hills so far below her had brought her a sort of peace from the chaos of her Meritocratic job. And she’s always wanted to see the ship that Earhart’s been working on in their backyard... 

“Okay,” Saira says in a tone that’s probably a little aggressive for accepting a birthday present.

Earhart doesn’t seem to mind, though, because she excitedly claps Saira on the shoulder. “Knew you would, knew you would!” she says, and starts back down the stairs towards the garden.

“What do I need?” Saira calls after her. 

“Nothing but the clothes on your back!” Earhart says, not turning around. 

Saira yells out to Saleh, inside the house, that she’s stepping out for a moment, and closes the door behind her. She finds herself flustered and excited despite herself as she goes to join Earhart, who has disappeared, presumably into the ship’s invisibility. As she approaches, she hears the clanking of machinery and without warning, an invisible hand grabs her wrist. 

Saira jumps, but Earhart’s cheerful voice comes from a foot beside her: “if you touch the boat, you’ll be able to see it!” Earhart guides Saira’s hand forward and down until she hits something solid and Saira suddenly finds herself half-crouched in front of a wooden dinghy. 

It’s smaller than she’d imagined: twelve feet in length at most, with a single mast rising from its centre and no sail. Dozens of thin metal tubes criss-cross the boat with seemingly no order, and several of them are exhaling green fumes that Saira knows are also invisible to an outsider. Another metal pole, presumably for balance, runs the length of the boat horizontally, about a foot off the floor. At the bow, Earhart seems to have transplanted parts of a different, old-fashioned vessel, because there is a large wooden helm on a raised platform wide enough for a few gnomes to stand on; it’s covered in knobs and levers of various shapes and sizes, and leads down to the main floor by a few steps.

As Saira stares at the strange creation, Earhart returns to an open trap door on the boat’s floor. She lies on her stomach, sticks her head into the hold, and starts messing with some contraption. “Gonna stand there with your mouth open all day?” Earhart’s muffled voice calls out. Saira, not seeing any gang-plank, clumsily hoists herself up. She stands around awkwardly for a moment, not wanting to touch anything. 

“This is a lot of work for, what was it... ‘filthy rich Meritocratic scum’?” Saira says eventually, recalling Earhart’s words to Curie when she had first met the Tahan family back in Cairo. It had taken Earhart some time to accept that the donation of the mansion was in good faith but Saira, who had already come to terms with many of her former employer’s shortcomings, had taken less offense to the insult than Earhart might have liked at the time.

“Ha! You know I forgave you for that months ago,” Earhart says. “Back when you became a little less filthy rich and Meritocratic. Besides, it’s been too long since I’ve taken a pretty lady out for a ride.”

Earhart’s flirting is rarely so blatant, and Saira is momentarily speechless, giving Earhart time to pull out several items from the hold and throw them abruptly to Saira, who fails to catch them. 

“You’ll want those on for the trip!” Earhart says cheerfully, either ignoring or failing to notice Saira’s blushing, and starts doing some mysterious work on the metal tubes. 

Saira picks up the items that Earhart threw to her: a leather jacket, gloves, a harness, and a set of goggles. The jacket and gloves are gnome-sized, a little too large for Saira and far too warm in the afternoon sun, but she puts them on anyways and slings the goggles around her neck. By the time that Saira’s figured out how to adjust the harness, Earhart’s finished her work on the tubes and has made her way to the bow, jumping onto the helm platform with a few bounds. She’s already wearing her harness and shows Saira how to clip it onto the cleats at the helm. In one swift motion, Earhart pulls down her goggles from her hat and whips out a pair of gloves from her pocket. They’re ridiculous, covered in jewels, but Saira can’t help but stare as Earhart pulls them on with her teeth.

“Ready?” Earhart says. Not waiting for an answer, she begins flipping levers. In an instant, the whole boat is shaking violently and rising into the air above the flower beds. Saira gives a shriek of surprise that immediately embarrasses her. She clings onto the side of the ship, trying to suppress the lurching of her stomach. 

Earhart, clutching the wheel confidently with two hands, looks over at Saira with a wild grin. “Everything alright?” 

Saira gives a weak nod, focussing on staying upright. 

“Then hold on tight, darling!” Earhart says and nudges another lever with her foot. The boat springs forward far faster than any airship Saira’s ever seen and before she knows it, they’re speeding through the air, onwards and upwards, their guidelines straining against the cleats as Earhart and Saira are pushed backwards. All at once, Saira finds herself barely able to see amid the rush of wind in her eyes and ears and the overwhelming nausea. The whole world becomes a wobbly blur of cold air, and Saira is suddenly grateful for the leather jacket and gloves. She fumbles to pull up her goggles while trying to keep some semblance of balance, still desperately holding onto whatever part of the boat she can.

With the goggles over her eyes, the dizzying world comes into focus. The ground is falling away with alarming speed, and while Saira’s never had a fear of heights before, the slope of the boat makes her terrified to look behind them or contemplate what might happen if her harness were to fail. 

Amid the rapidly changing landscape, Earhart is Saira’s sole point of focus. Earhart’s euphoric, her body a buzz of activity as she alternates between the wheel and the levers with practiced, fluid motions. Saira can’t hear her over the wind, but Earhart seems to be cackling with glee, entirely lost in the moment. For a minute, Saira forgets her fear, focusing only on Earhart’s exhilaration.

Then, without warning, Earhart is gone. Saira’s whole vision goes white, and she can feel moisture on her skin — but there’s no time to panic before they break cloud cover and Saira’s treated to bright sunshine and the sight of endless white clouds under them, stretching away in every direction. For all the half dozen times Saira’s been on larger airships, she’s never felt so close to the clouds before, never felt as if they were a sea on which their boat was actually sailing. It’s beautiful, overwhelming, and enrapturing, and it takes a while for Saira to realize that Earhart’s slowed and leveled the boat. Without the roaring of the wind, Saira can hear Earhart once again.

“... So basically I retrofitted some of my old hydraulics designs and most of the levers are actually right where you’d expect them, except for the aetherial stabilizer — had to move that to make way for the tertiary gas pump,” Earhart is explaining, wholly unaware that Saira has not been able to hear most of her chatter and wouldn’t be able to understand it even if she had. “But honestly on this design the stabilizers aren’t as integral to the fluidics core as you might think. And I think that about covers it, yeah? Shouldn’t be too hard to handle?” — and suddenly Earhart is moving away from the wheel and indicating that Saira should take her place. 

“I’m not sure this is a good idea, Earhart —” Saira starts, but Earhart’s already unclipping herself from the helm, jumping down to the main floor of the skiff, and re-clipping herself to the metal pole at its base. 

“It’s Am, remember?” she calls back. “And you’ll be fine, I just need a moment to adjust some things. Just do what I showed you!”

Saira nervously takes the wheel, not recalling a single thing that Earhart — Am — might have shown her. The wheel is heavy in her hands, continually trying to veer right or left, and it takes all of Saira’s energy to keep it steady. Holding onto the helm with a white-knuckled grip, she looks forward out over the clouds, and is suddenly hit with the realization that this miracle of chaotic alchemy is under her control, that for this moment she’s somehow keeping it afloat above the clouds. Is this the thrill that Am gets every time she flies one of these things? Saira feels a surge of power — right until the skiff starts slowly tipping forward and descending. 

“Earhart!” Saira yells, glancing over her shoulder to see Earhart working on some valves. “Am! It’s falling, what do I do?” 

“Adjust the equipoise regulator!” Am shouts, without looking up. 

“The what?” Saira says, turning back to the helm and scanning the dozens of levers positioned at every height. None of them are marked. “What does it look like?”

“The equipoise — be there in a jiff, don’t touch anything!” Am calls from behind her. Saira can feel the composure for which she’s always been acclaimed slipping along with the skiff. The boat’s changing slope at a terrifying pace and Saira finds herself irrationally trying to angle the wheel upwards. They’re nearing the cloud cover now, and Saira’s about to try pulling levers at random when Am’s right there beside her, moving a small switch a couple of millimetres to the left. The boat immediately rights itself and Saira’s left gasping for breath at the wheel while Am, apparently unconcerned, calmly clips herself back into a helm cleat and takes the wheel back from Saira. 

“Sorry — must have forgotten to tell you about that one,” Am says. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Saira says, taking a moment to let her heartbeat return to normal. “Yeah, it was actually…” Saira trails off, unable to find the right words without embarrassing herself. 

“Invigorating, yeah?” Am says with a proud grin. “Never thought I’d enjoy handling anything more than my shipping vessel but I gotta say, the maneuverability of the skiff beats out the power of that old thing any day. And even the smallest gyrocopters have nothing on its speed.”

Saira gives a murmur of agreement, and they settle into comfortable silence. Am seems totally at ease handling the boat, showing no signs of the effort needed to keep the wheel straight and adjusting levers seemingly at random without so much as a glance. Instead, she looks out over the clouds with that same slight smile that Saira’s sure must be on her face.

“Thank you for this,” Saira says, breaking the quiet. “It’s quite the... gift.” 

“Don’t worry about it!” Am says. “Sorry if my approach was a bit, em, _forceful_. Thought you might just need a break from everything down there.”

At Am’s words, Saira realizes with a start that she hasn’t thought about _everything down there_ since she stepped on the boat — that, for the first time in months, she’s not been worrying about her family or the state of the world or the people she’s grieving or what the future might entail. Even as Saira recalls her anxieties now, they seem so much smaller next to the infinite sky on which they’re drifting. 

“I think I did,” Saira says finally. “Puts things into perspective.”

“Doesn’t it?” Am says. “I’ve always found it easier to think up here. Even when Curie’s got me on one of her weirder missions, I can always get up above the clouds and nothing bothers me as much.”

“Do you like it?” Saira says. “The missions for Curie, I mean.”

“Yeah, they’re good. I was with the Harlequins for a while before all this happened,” Am says, “so it’s not exactly all new to me. The solo missions are different, though. I won’t lie and say I don’t miss my old crew sometimes. They’re a good bunch, but… times change, I guess.” 

“They really do.” 

“But it’s a good gig,” Am says. “It’s doing right in the world, making things better, helping people.” The traces of pensiveness fade from her face as she puts on her usual barefaced smirk. “Nothing the Tahans would know about, I’m sure.”

“Shut up!” Saira says, laughing and elbowing Am in the arm. Am laughs, too, with a wide smile that seems pleased at Saira’s playfulness. 

“Hey, want to do something fun?” Am says.

Saira raises an eyebrow. “Is it dangerous?”

“Only as dangerous as this skiff.”

Am’s energy is contagious, and Saira can’t suppress a smile or her excitement. “Do your worst,” Saira says.

Am apparently doesn’t need any more encouragement, because she’s already flipping half a dozen switches. The boat picks up speed rapidly, and as the winds begin to rush once again, Am shouts over the noise. “Hold on!”

In a panic, Saira searches for something to grab onto, and before she can think, one arm is desperately wrapped around Am’s waist. Am doesn’t seem to mind at all, focussing instead on steering the careening skiff. When the boat hits break-neck speed, Am reaches for a large knob beside the wheel and cranks it decisively to the right. In an instant, the world is whirling. The sky and the clouds roll like a bowling ball as the skiff spins twice, three times, four times until finally, Am casually turns the knob back to the left. With a lurch, the boat levels and slows, and the world returns to normal.

As Saira's stomach begins to settle, Am looks down at the arm at her waist.

“Very forward, Miss Tahan,” Am says with a wink.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t —” Saira says, pulling away from Am.

“I don’t mind, really,” Am says. “Want to do another one?”

* * *

A couple of hours and several airskiff tricks later, the boat is once again floating slowly and serenely through the sky. Saira’s at the wheel and Am, occasionally adjusting the switches, stands next to her, their shoulders touching in relaxed intimacy. They’re looking out at the first hints of sunset burning off the few remaining clouds and at the miniature landscape below them, soaked in a serene red glow. 

“We should probably head down before dark,” Am says, breaking the silence. “You’ll want to get off your feet.”

Saira nods, noticing for the first time the soreness in her legs and the tiredness in her arms from holding the helm steady. “Are you staying for the evening?”

“If the illustrious Tahans will have me,” Am says. 

“Anytime. We may even forgive you for not calling ahead.”

“You know you liked the surprise.”

“I did,” Saira says, not hiding her smile.

“Alright, I’ll take us down,” Am says, and moves over to switch positions with Saira. She takes the wheel in one hand and wraps the other around Saira’s waist. Saira blushes and reciprocates the gesture, tucking her arm around Am’s back. In the cool breeze of the late afternoon sky, the embrace is warm and reassuring. 

“Hold on tight!” Am says again, and flips several levers with her foot. The skiff’s bow jerks downwards, the boat picks up speed, and suddenly they’re swooping towards the ground in wide circles. Everything is once more a blur, the wind roaring in Saira’s ears and the floor unstable beneath her feet, but Am’s grip remains firm even as she navigates their descent with practiced ease, and Saira feels none of her earlier panic. 

As the Tahan house comes into view, Am leans into Saira’s ear, a mischievous grin on her face. “Where should I park it? The garden, was it?”

“Don’t you dare!” Saira yells back over the wind, giggling. “My father’s gonna lose it again.”

“Right you are! This thing’s landing isn’t exactly precise but —” Am says, as she makes one final dive towards the house’s backyard. The skiff skids to a floating halt above a patch of loose soil only feet away from the garden beds. “This alright?” Am says, waiting to bring the boat to the ground. 

“I think it should be fine — oh wait, no! —” Saira says, but Am’s already pulling the levers, not realizing until too late just how sandy this part of the backyard is. As the skiff hits the ground with a thud, soil flies up in a cloud around it, coating Saira and Am in dusty dirt. Both women immediately untangle themselves, coughing, wiping their faces, and removing their now-opaque goggles.

Saira looks up at Am with a laugh, a quip on her tongue about the supposed maneuverability of the boat, but stops when she sees Am’s face. It’s still covered in patches of dirt and a goofy smile, with angry red lines where her goggles had been sitting and her short rusty hair, finally free of that absurd hat, sticking with sweat to her forehead. Framed by the setting sun behind her, Am is the most handsome sight that Saira’s ever seen. Without thinking, Saira steps towards her, reaching out with one dusty hand to Am’s cheek. Am, surprised, eagerly returns the touch and then, all at once they’re kissing. Am’s lips are cracked and windworn but her embrace is soft and gentle, and Saira thinks she’s never tasted anything so sweet. They part slowly, smiles on both their faces, still holding the other’s cheek.

A moment of perfect silence is broken by the sound of the back door swinging open. Both women turn to see Saleh on the doorstep, looking out in confusion into the apparently empty backyard. 

“Who’s there?” he calls. “Saira?”

Am and Saira break down into giggles, desperately trying to muffle their laughter from Saleh’s hearing.

“Can he wait?” Am whispers, bringing her hand to the back of Saira’s head and threading her fingers into her tight bun. 

Saira nods. “It’s my birthday,” she says, and leans in for another kiss. 


End file.
